The French website’s name was very similar to that of a mainstream news site. EU DisinfoLab, in cooperation with newsroom fact-checkers, has uncovered a far-right Polish media operation running a website that was making slight changes to real, existing stories and re-posting them to sow discord. The non-governmental organization, which collaborates with newsrooms throughout the European Union to combat misinformation, discovered the alleged news site after being contacted by fact-checkers from Agence France-Presse. Roman Adamczyk, research coordinator for EU DisinfoLab, told ABC News he saw an article from AFP fact-checkers about false information spread by a website called France Libre 24. That article triggered an alarm after the EU DisinfoLab also saw suspicious activity from the same site.
Adamczyk said a quick review of the site set off alarm bells for him. “First, because it was using a name close to France 24, which is a real mainstream media in France,” he said. “Then, we had a closer look at the content and we realized that a lot of articles in the website focused on polarizing topics such as identity, immigration, religion.” Adamczyk told ABC News that the articles cited mainstream media sources but were rewritten to change their meanings.

via abcnews: Fact checkers expose alleged news site run by far-right media company

Categories: Rechtsextremismus